Meet Gaffney Taylor

We were lucky to catch up with Gaffney Taylor recently and have shared our conversation below.

Gaffney, thrilled to have you on the platform as I think our readers can really benefit from your insights and experiences. In particular, we’d love to hear about how you think about burnout, avoiding or overcoming burnout, etc.

Hello! My name is Gaffney Taylor. As a multi-passionate creative, I avoid burnout by remembering what makes me feel alive. I used to feel like a zombie on the wrong medications when I was a springboard and platform diver, I’ve felt like a vampire, staying up in the wee hours of the pitch-black morning to create art to the point of barely keeping my eyes open. I am a witchy, spiritual woman, full of magic and wonder for what could be— if I try my best. We all wear different masks in life or take on different roles that dictate our life story. Reader, what labels do you give yourself, and how do they hold you back or make you a beautiful person? Do you carry the role of mother or father, brother or sister, employee or boss, etc.? As a multi-passionate creative, I take on many roles: artist, writer, healer, life coach, ukulele player, roller skater, etc. Burnout tends to occur frequently with so many of the intentions I set. The ways I handle them to avoid overwhelm are various. Sometimes I allow myself an extra break during the day or I enjoy a home spa and meditation night on the weekend. What excites me the most about life is my belief to heal people through my words and skills. I started two newsletters on Substack, one called The Creative Detectives Tea Club, where I invent and research cases to solve on life and literature through self-growth guided writing prompts and a personal curriculum for people. I’ve found a personal curriculum to not only be fun to engage in, but also wonderful for accountability. I watch YouTube for free educational purposes, and other learning platforms I turn to regularly are Domestika, Skillshare, Udemy, and the public library.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Hello again beautiful souls! My name is Gaffney Taylor, and I am a multi-passionate creative entrepreneur. I received my MFA in creative writing with a focus in fiction at Queens University of Charlotte this year, I am a practicing ICF-Certified expressive arts life coach, I achieved two degrees in photography, and I worked in the fashion photography industry with celebrity clients, while publishing my editorial photos in magazines. I was a professional springboard and platform diver for 10 years, and I am self taught at painting and up-cycled fashion design. I play the ukulele and roller skate for fun.

I believe my branding is special because people are often afraid of what they do not know, and as a multi-degree academic and avid self-learner, I know the strength knowledge provides for self awareness. In addition, as a life coach, I gently help people overcome limiting beliefs based on their personal experiences. A personal example of how knowledge has helped me become a healthier and happier version of myself is when I first learned about how trauma works through affecting the body and mind together. I avoided processing traumatic experiences for fear of reliving events for years, but eventually I educated myself on topics like trauma cycling and the window of tolerance, and therefore self compassion and happiness became easier. I feel so much more in control of my life through breaking toxic cycles and realizing everyone has varying thresholds for the amount of pain they can tolerate before going into fight or flight mode. It gave me the courage to stand up for my needs and help others grow too. By engaging in critical thinking with my academic background and intuitive, creative problem solving in my life coaching practice, I’ve reached a great balance of knowledge being a positive force for others, especially in an age where society is consumed by mass, conflicting opinions on social media that can perpetuate violent behavior. I think the biggest flaw we make today is to lead blindly and ignorantly, instead of taking a moment to pause, breathe, and ask important questions before taking action.
I have always been fascinated by how life evolves like the ticking of a timer that never stops, or the gears that make this world function the way it does, and I think this has made me a very open-minded person. I believe society is a construct. A beautiful, misunderstood assignment of meanings to the world around us to better make sense of our relation to it from a human perspective. Life is beautiful because the characteristics that make us different are often what make us misunderstood, just as different creatures on the planet are misunderstood because they are unique to us. My diagnosis of bipolar disorder makes me experience the world in different ways than someone without it. For example, I’ve been labeled as lazy when I am actually clinically depressed. At this point in my healing journey, I don’t judge others for their struggles and even more so how they react to mine because you never know what someone is going through or has gone through. We can’t always control what other people do or say, but we can choose to be there for ourselves when we are misunderstood.
Some recent projects I am working on right now are two newsletters, one feminist newsletter with its first post out on Substack, and one detective themed newsletter to solve mysteries on life and literature. I am designing T-shirts and getting certified as an intuitive energy healer, hypnotherapist, and reiki practitioner.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Three skills that have impacted my journey the most are:
1. Critical questioning and creative problem solving. One way I honed creative problem solving was through art school. I took a graphic design course in college where the teacher required us to draft 100 drawings of the same single idea for a project. Thinking of 100 different ways of representing a solution made it easier over time to be open minded to possibilities not just in art but in my every day life.
2. Honoring every part of who I am (the artsy, the fashionista, the messy, the pretty, the tragedy, the redemption, and everything in between).
3. Using my voice/words to uplift others and set intentions for awareness and unity over division

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

I think it is important to love what you do and focus on your strengths, but also have balance with your time and energy on improving every aspect of your life. We are not just our careers, we are not just our relationships, and we are not our accomplishments. Say you draw a pie chart, where you divide your time how you like across all areas of your life: Your career, leisure, relationships, friends, hobbies, etc. If the majority of your life is dedicated to your career, then suddenly you lose your job, and none of the other areas of your life are developed, it will be a difficult transition and you may be stuck in a tough emotional state until you find new meaning. I think the best thing to focus on is the way you want to feel. Do you want to be happy? Free? Peaceful? How can you give yourself these emotional experiences through all areas of your life? When you focus more so on the emotional states you want to feel and allow yourself to daydream about what happiness or peace or love means to you, then it will be easier to know what to look for to experience inner fulfillment.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: littlemisswomanhood
• Other: Substack: Little Miss Womanhood